Versus, which carries sports programming as varied as the Tour de France, college football, IRL auto racing and the majority of regular-season national NHL games, went dark on DirecTV after not reaching a new contract deal Monday.

At 9:01 p.m. PDT, the Versus channel on DirecTV went to a blue screen with the message, "Versus is no longer available on this channel. Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

The dispute is over how much, if any, a rate increase DirecTV will pay for the channel. According to a statement on the DirecTV website, the Versus demand was called "piggish."

"DirecTV already pays Versus more than any other independent distributor," the statement says. It also says that Versus is asking for a 20% rate hike.

In response, Versus released a statement that said, in part, "We are disappointed that DirecTV has chosen to remove Versus from its service and deny its subscribers access to our all-encompassing coverage of the sports they love."

RuthlessBurgher

09-03-2009, 04:23 PM

Versus, which carries sports programming as varied as the Tour de France, college football, IRL auto racing and the majority of regular-season national NHL games, went dark on DirecTV after not reaching a new contract deal Monday.

At 9:01 p.m. PDT, the Versus channel on DirecTV went to a blue screen with the message, "Versus is no longer available on this channel. Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

The dispute is over how much, if any, a rate increase DirecTV will pay for the channel. According to a statement on the DirecTV website, the Versus demand was called "piggish."

"DirecTV already pays Versus more than any other independent distributor," the statement says. It also says that Versus is asking for a 20% rate hike.

In response, Versus released a statement that said, in part, "We are disappointed that DirecTV has chosen to remove Versus from its service and deny its subscribers access to our all-encompassing coverage of the sports they love."

As long as you get FSN Pittsburgh on DirecTV, you should be golden...until the playoffs arrive, that is. Hopefully they are able to work something out by then. If the NFL and Comcast could finally agree to air the NFL Network, then Comcast and DirecTV can hopefully agree to air Versus. If not, there is some kind of Open Ice package (or whatever it's called), right?

buckeyehoppy

09-07-2009, 09:34 PM

Versus, which carries sports programming as varied as the Tour de France, college football, IRL auto racing and the majority of regular-season national NHL games, went dark on DirecTV after not reaching a new contract deal Monday.

At 9:01 p.m. PDT, the Versus channel on DirecTV went to a blue screen with the message, "Versus is no longer available on this channel. Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

The dispute is over how much, if any, a rate increase DirecTV will pay for the channel. According to a statement on the DirecTV website, the Versus demand was called "piggish."

"DirecTV already pays Versus more than any other independent distributor," the statement says. It also says that Versus is asking for a 20% rate hike.

In response, Versus released a statement that said, in part, "We are disappointed that DirecTV has chosen to remove Versus from its service and deny its subscribers access to our all-encompassing coverage of the sports they love."

As long as you get FSN Pittsburgh on DirecTV, you should be golden...until the playoffs arrive, that is. Hopefully they are able to work something out by then. If the NFL and Comcast could finally agree to air the NFL Network, then Comcast and DirecTV can hopefully agree to air Versus. If not, there is some kind of Open Ice package (or whatever it's called), right?

You can get NHL Center Ice, but it isn't much good past the regular season. In the case of the Pens, it may not be any good at all since they are the defending champions and may warrant prime time on Versus depending on where they stand on the totem pole at season's end and who they'll be matched with in the first round. Past the first round, Center Ice still has game here and there, but only if there are conflicts (which rarely happen after round one anyway). So, Center Ice is more or less non-existent past the first playoff round.